Jesus

Ran Ibuki is a young girl with severe mental health issues, including schizophrenia and hallucinations. Her current medication works well to aid her focus, but it also leaves her with a lot of memory problems.

Even worse, Ran Ibuki has fallen into some kind of cosmic nightmare. She’s been on the road for a while and each turn she’s made has involved horrific supernatural entities, shifts in her own ability to talk as she pleases, and endless baffling mysteries. Her journey has taken her through numerous different upsetting and gruesome supernatural events, such as the Golem of Delivery, time traveling notebooks, the Eclipse Silkworm, and Mr. Blood Sculptor.

With her memory issues, Ran can’t even recall how this journey began. She can’t remember her family, her hobbies, or any approximation of a normal life she could have possessed. Here is what Ran knows for certain: her girlfriend is missing and she needs to find her.

Ran wakes up in a seemingly abandoned school, with similarly abandoned school children. The students are functionally immortal, through caveats. Every now and then, they draw lots to pick a murderer and a victim. Someone is killed and the students must deduce the truth. Only once the killer and the method are identified can the dead be revived.

It’s a lot.

Much of Chrono Jotter’s negative reviews are influenced by a poor previous translation. The recent update has greatly improved the translation, although I haven’t touched enough of the previous version to attest to that. But the immediately (and intentionally) obtuse plot and presentation certainly couldn’t have helped the localization teams build a coherent narrative for readers. Ran makes frequent reference to adventures we aren’t privy to, to the point I had to commit a lot of research into unpacking whether or not this was part of a franchise. But it's not, that’s simply the way this story unpacks itself. If this vn is part of an established franchise and my research failed me, it's certainly not spinning its wheels with this entry.

The actual gameplay requires a bit more strategy than one might think. The game opens with a quiz that impacts Ran’s stats. Investigation, Alacrity (athletics), and Charisma. These influence what kind of choices we can select. The way stat checks play out, it’s better to commit to two stats over the others. These stat checks don’t change much of the plot, but it helps get more information or see bonus scenes with characters.

But the real meat of the story to me isn’t in the supernatural or the murder trials, it's the day by day uncomfortable conversations. The cast has completely accepted their little murder routine and tend to find Ran’s horror with the situation completely baffling. It's just part of their daily chores. Ran gets treated by the cast as less of a hero and less like a threat to the social order and more like a depressing bummer. It's just a lil murder. Don’t whine so much. We’re just chilling.

Within this uncanny framework, Ran proceeds to really easily fumble some bitches.

Light prologue spoilers in this paragraph. Rot13 used here. Ena vf shyyl qribgrq gb Naa naq pna’g tenfc nal shgher gung qbrfa’g eribyir nebhaq ure orybirq. Fb jura Naa nccrnef irel rneyl ba, vg’f n dhvpx thg chapu gung Naa fhssref sebz nzarfvn. Fur unf ab zrzbel bs ure eryngvbafuvc jvgu Ena naq vf vzzrqvngryl haareirq ol Ena’f svkngvba. Juvyr fur znxrf fbzr gbxra rssbegf, gur furre vagrafvgl bs Ena’f srryvatf naq ure bja vanovyvgl gb erghea gurz vafgnagyl irel dhvpxyl ohvyqf fbzr bs gur zbfg hapbzsbegnoyr, njxjneq pbairefngvbaf V’ir rire jvgarffrq. Ena’f ragver zragny urnygu unf erfgrq ba erhavgvat jvgu ure ybat ybfg ybir, naq gung ybir tbrf nybat jvgu vg bhg bs n frafr bs boyvtngvba, rira vs fur pna’g dhvgr znxr gur qvfgnapr.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that Ran is depressive, judgemental, and generally takes on the appearance of a wet cat, the school classmates very quickly fall bad for this sopping mess. Maybe it's her passion for solving these crimes, maybe it's the way she shakes up the monotony, but they get it bad. Ran finds this reaction puzzling and disturbing, dismissing the idea of any other relationship as completely ludicrous.

The whole dynamic is messy to untangle, but in such juicy ways. The fact that murder solving is normalized means it's all the interpersonal drama that gets heightened to the extremes. It’s a journey that isn’t interested in holding the hands of the readers, but a journey that’s incredibly rewarding for people willing to approach it on its level.

Edit: I also just want to praise what a positive depiction of schizophrenia this is? Ran is a flawed, messy person, but the story also so sympathetic and understanding to the realities of her illness. I keep expecting some kind of twist about hallucinations or some such, but Ran's perspective is actually extremely trustworthy. Her paranoia and depressive episodes aren't things she can just anime power overcome and there's such care in showing what mistakes are personal flaws vs. things she's going to suffer from the rest of her life.

Its... weird for me, given my own history with an ex. I still worry about her sometimes. I knew when she wasn't in control of her own actions and I knew when she just wanted to drive everyone away so she could be alone. But I also knew when she was hurting me or ignoring my feelings on purpose, outside of her illness. It takes a long time before you can understand the difference. You can tell how personal and important this topic was to the writers and how making this distinction comes from personal experience. I really respect and admire it. Ran's a protag of all time. I'm excited for more.

Fascinating little piece of history. You can see a path here from Star Wars to Mass Effect in terms of rpg design. I fond the combat extremely bad and there's plenty of pacing issues. The lore gets dumped on you in such chunks, its hard to find the emotional resonance its looking for in those heightened moments.

The Good/Bad choices seen in KOTOR or Mass Effects really suffer here. Open Palm vs. Closed Fist starts with some interesting nuance. Open Palm believes in helping others no matter what. Closed Fist believes in self-strength and tough love. Closed Fist ideology might ignore someone in danger if they felt the victim merely needs to get stronger. But if they felt the odds were clearly unfair, with the oppressed having no path forward on their own, then they might feel obligated to help. Its an interesting distinction, but ultimately the choices fall back into that Good Bad binary.

But the ambition here carries this a long way. Numerous people worked on this with a different idea of what kind of story they were telling and you can feel how those concepts meshed or clashed with each other. There character writing needs some polish and there's definitely a feeling of 00s yikes about a few asian character designs. But the overall vibes are nicely tuned, its easy to forgive the clunk.

I might get immersive sim pilled from this.